You seek to further the dissemination of small arms in America. What better vehicle for cultural sabotage. You seek to spread chaos with your words on "freedom". That is cultural vandalism. You advocate antisocial behavior over the medium of the internet. What country are YOU working for?

You make neo-anarchism sound as American as apple pie. What a better way to degenerate a society, than to speak of "freedom" and "individual liberty" but show wanton disregard for fundamental rights such as the right to "not get killed by ones fellow citizen" or "not have to go about ones life, and worry about whether you are going to be shot". There can be no liberty without a government to guarantee it for all citizens. That is what you seek to sabotage, presumably for the benefit of America's enemies.

E.N., don't be a fool. I speak the language that the Founders spoke in our formative documents. Those speak of individual liberty. You have the false impression that my owning firearms puts you in danger. That's only true if you're trying to kill me. Otherwise, you're safe.

Greg Camp and apparently another of the ignorami/anonymi are the one's who don't properly appreciate dark humor --- as Laci does, with the classic Brit wit.

Well said E.N.

Greg, I'm not sure you are competent in English, old or new. You delude yourself, as usual, about the Founding Fathers.

Your owning firearms, the way you 'secure them' and the way you transfer them to other parties, AND your notions about when and whom it is appropriate to shoot are ALL dangers to yourself, anyone and everyone at all times.

That would be in part because you fail to practice proper safety, despite your having persuaded yourself you do, and because you engage in the gun zombie lunacies about what is and is not safe.

You are the poster child for a lack of critical thinking skills, a knowledge base that is neither deep nor wide, and are the epitome of the gun culture failure.

Dog Gone, it truly is mysterious how you can declare what I know and don't know without having spent any time examining my knowledge. Perhaps you see standardized testing as the highest form?

You can't point to any specific dangers that I have subjected anyone to. You moan about the handgun that I keep in my nightstand without showing how someone is going to get it without waking me up. You repeatedly claim that I engage in unsafe transactions at gun shows, but you can't tell me how trading one rifle for another increases the danger of the world. As for situations in which using a gun in self-defense is appropriate, to you, it's never appropriate. At least, that's the impression that your comments create. I've never seen you explain what would make a legitimate use of a gun.

You see, you whine about critical thinking skills, but you show none of your own. Your chief argumentative techniques are argument by irrelevant information dump, sneering at your opponents, and complaining about how America isn't Europe. Whoever told you that those are valid methods?

Your individual possession of small arms may not actually cause harm to anyone, (or allow you to do such) however the arms which you possess provide you with a means to resist State power. Therefore an armed society is an uncivilized society, as the arms provide a means of resisting, or overthrowing the State.

A right to "keep and bear" certain "arms" which courts have defined as non-"assault" rifles (whatever that term is supposed to imply, other than to de-stigmatize a class of non-"assault" rifles, and make the proliferation and possession of such "ordinary" rifles socially acceptable) shotguns (up to 10 bore) and non-"assault" handguns (provided such long arms have barrel lengths over 18 inches for shotguns or 16 inches for rifles, that the pistols do not include a fore-grip and such arms do not fire automatically and do not include any form of sound suppression. Such restrictions on an alleged "right" are rather arbitrary and pointless, as they ignore the fact that the arms in question are lethal, regardless of whether they incorporate certain features, and to assert otherwise is merely a disguised justification of civilian armament. The (currently interpreted) attribution such a right to the mere subject of the State, by the current U.S. constitution, would contradict a (rather fundamental) right to civilian disarmament, which may be derived from the provisions of the preamble which specifically establish the obligation of the State to "ensure domestic tranquility" (therefore requiring a disarmed citizenry) and to "provide for the common defense" which requires State actors to have a monopoly on the lawful use of arms.

1. The common defense is better served by an armed populace. Such people already have knowledge of firearms and their uses.

2. Domestic tranquility isn't threatened by good citizens having arms. The threat comes from bad actors. In our society, those are few and can be dealt with by a combination of good citizens and the state.

3. You are correct to observe that most gun control laws are arbitrary and pointless. I see that as a reason to repeal those laws.

4. There is no "right of civilian disarmament" in the Constitution. By contrast, there is a specific statement that the people have the right to be armed. Only a tyrant would call taking away the liberty of citizens a right. of those people.

5. A society is made up of its fundamental units: individuals. We are not the property of the state. The state is an agreement that we all make with each other. Your constant use of the phrase, mere subject, or similar verbiage shows how you see people. My side believes in freedom.

One of you accuses me of being a CCP/PRC agent and another accuses me of being a British lawyer afflicted with (apparent) multi-personality (dissociative personalty) disorder. Guess again, you can do better (unless that would be expecting to much from the Neanderthal)

E.N., your arguments are straight out the Communist Party's playbook. If you aren't getting paid by the Chinese government, what's really in it for you? You just enjoy arguing against American values and human rights?

Please explain to me how any of the concepts and policies which I have advocated, appear to support Marx-Leninism.

If anyone is a communist here, it is the one who hides under the cloak of anarchism, and civilian armament, presumably to further the cause of class struggle, and the eventual armed and forceful overthrow of the State (not a possibility if the State would utilize my ideas)

I see you are speaking of human rights. Like the right to civilian disarmament?

E.N., what right of civilian disarmament? There is no such right. You claim that we all have a right to have our choice taken away. What kind of right is that? Being a human being and a citizen means a right to choosing one's own destiny. It means deciding the course one's own life will take. You want to take that away.

I'm not accusing you of being a follower of Marx. He was a (second-rate) philosopher. You are obedient to the Party's ideas of how society should be organized--a society in which the individual is the property of the state for the "common good," meaning the benefit of the rulers.

I have no interest in overthrowing the government. I don't want that to happen. What I do think is that the government needs a reminder of who's in charge, namely, the citizens.

No, we don't think they're looking to do it, but when they find themselves in a scary situation and end up killing someone that didn't need killing, then what are they going to do? They're going to dress it up as best they can.

Actually, the statistics of murder/suicides and other shootings, including some of the shoot first executions of unarmed people who were not a threat -- like shooting through a locked door -- and of course all of the stupid accidental shootings which involve bullets passing through walls into the premises of other innocent people abundantly prove that the Castle Doctrine as it is currently defined in the U.S is stupid, useless, and outright dangerous to all concerned, whichever side of the firearm they are on.

You expect me to take your word for it, Dog Gone? How about providing some sources for these claims? Show us the real numbers of how many people get killed or injured in the situations that you describe.

We have Castle Doctrine in the U.S. because too many violent criminals invade people's homes and beat, rape, and/or kill the homeowners.

It's really quite simple. A person who invades my home is attacking me and my family. The only unknown is how far the criminal will go on their attack -- something that the criminals themselves often do not even know. As the homeowner, I have no way of knowing how far the criminal will go in their attack and I owe a criminal nothing. That is how the Social Contract works.

The real beauty of the Castle Doctrine is that it provides an "out" for criminals: DON'T GO INTO SOMEONE ELSE'S HOME.

If you want to improve society, ask yourself why you advocate more consideration for criminals than for citizens.

TS, are you saying setting foot on the lawn is enough to kill a guy over. I can understand that he might be perceived as a lethal threat in the sick, insecure, paranoid mind of a gun owner obsessed with his rights.

Or in the mind of gun owner who is obsessed with taking away everyone else’s rights but not their own. Dog gone said exactly that about her stalker while being very vocal about how bad carrying a gun and self-defense laws are.

To guarantee life, liberty, and property for all citizens of a nation, there must be to some degree a collectivization of resources in order to protect the fundamental liberties of the persons subject to the rule of the State from infringement by their fellow citizen. Without the government there would be no rights. The twenty-first century American is very much a creation of the state, as without police officers, firefighters, social workers, and soldiers, there would be no quality of life, no liberty and no property worth defending. We must at all times consider ourselves a creation of the State, which has (directly or indirectly) endowed the ordinary subject, with their very lives, property and the freedoms that we take for granted. The collectivization of some rights in inherent to the formation of a civilized society. Police are endowed with coercive power, while mere citizens are not. In order to create a civilized society, where the mighty are not free to exploit the weak, as well as maintain the rule of law, we have traded individual self-defense for the benefit of a professional police force. The mere subject of a State (in this case the U.S.) has no reasonable claim of a "right" to "keep and bear" certain arms, the form of arms which may be lawfully possessed or the manner or place in which such arms are may lawfully used, dependent on the current prevailing interpretation of the (falsely) perceived right. Such a right (as it is claimed) being endowed to the mere person, by the current U.S. constitution, would contradict a (rather fundamental) right to civilian disarmament, which may be derived from the provisions of the preamble which specifically establish the obligation of the State to "ensure domestic tranquility" (therefore requiring a disarmed citizenry) and to "provide for the common defense" which requires State actors to have a monopoly on the lawful use of coercive power (which is illegitimately provided to the subject through the legal codes under names such as "castle doctrine"). Fortunately, the U.S. is solitary in it's (collective) lunacy.

1. There is no right to civilian disarmament. You keep mentioning that, but that's a policy of taking rights away from citizens, not enhancing their ability to exercise rights.

2. You started off talking about a collectivization of resources, but then you go on to a collectivizing of rights. You didn't give a reason for that transition, probably hoping that we wouldn't notice. The problem is that I've been reading for a long time, so your rhetoric that comes straight out of the Communist Central Committee on Propaganda doesn't befuddle me. You really should read Orwell's essay, "Politics and the English Language," before posting again.

3. You keep calling us mere citizens, mere subjects, mere people, as if individuals don't matter. In the American system, the individual is the fundamental unit.

4. Because of your error in thinking discussed in #3, you think that the state is perfect and never goes wrong. There are plenty of examples to the contrary.

Lets face it, an awful lot of those who possess firearms in this country are far from lawful and don't seek permission.

That would be in part because people who initially acquire firearms are either careless with their storage, losing care, custody and control of them --- OR, they're like you Greggy, exchanging them with complete strangers without any knowledge of whether or not they are prohibited people.

Then of course there are all the certifiable crazy people who EASILY obtain firearms. That would be because we have TOO DAMNED MANY OF THEM, in the hands of stupid people like YOU.

Because I'm sure YOU think you can tell who is and is not sane by just looking at someone (which is more than a mental health professional would claim - in other words, you're wrong). And I'm sure you think you can recognize a drug user by simply looking at them (you can't do that either) and you can't tell who has a criminal record by looking at them either.

Which is why we need laws preventing the individual transfer of lethal weapons -- because Jackasses like you are too stupid to check and too stupid to know your own limitations, which makes you dangerous.

THAT is how people end up with illegal weapons, or weapons they possess illegally.

So you've swallowed the same poison that makes Jadegold talk baby talk? Fine, Dogbutt, why can't you comprehend what a comment is saying? I was talking about NFA firearms--of which short-barreled shotguns are a category. A good citizen can pay a tax to get a stamp and legally own one. It's a whole lot easier than a fully automatic firearm.

You're right that we don't have to get much in the way of permission for other classes of guns, and that's the way it should be in a free country.

Whoa there, just over a month ago you said you were NOT for outlawing individual transfers by saying you were ok with individuals doing their own checks bypassing the FFL. Worse yet, you chided me for assuming that you took the same position that all the other gun controllers want (like Japete and Mike who demand they go through FFLs).

Dog gone (9/4/2012): “That would be a problem for you with your own paranoia TS. Clearly since I offer the solution of using the same existing database provided to the NICS, with existing very cheap checks through state facilities like the BCA, which are already used in states with gun show check requirements of all sellers, you would be wrong.”

E.N. stated:"In order to create a civilized society ... we have traded individual self-defense for the benefit of a professional police force."

That statement is totally wrong. First of all, several states sanction concealed carry: we have "constitutional concealed carry" in four states and "shall issue" concealed carry in 40 states. And there are many examples of police officers, sheriff deputies, and Sheriffs telling citizens to get concealed carry licenses and to arm themselves. Here is just one example where Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright urged women to arm themselves: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-20128354/s.c-sheriff-urges-women-to-pack-firepower/

Exactly. Consistency is the key. We’ll always differ on what we call reasonable, but when you guys use arguments that contradict what you said earlier, I say “gotcha”. In the case of Dog gone, she was being condescending by saying I wasn’t “doing my homework” and making false assumptions about her position. When I did my homework it turns out she hasn’t been consistent. So this “gotcha” was well deserved.

Mike: “Why don't you just stick with the discussion and stop being a pain in the ass.”

Ok, I apologize for making your ass hurt. :) I’ll try and tone down the “gotchas” but I can’t promise I’ll have the will to let the most egregious ones slide.

Not that you or any other American who thinks that Deliverance was a documentary would understand foreign humor. Unlike American humor, it is not produced for the comprehension by persons of limited mental capacity, such as yourself. Stop putting on the mask of literacy, and go back to bed with your cousin.

E.N., What a stupid comment. Inbreeding is the only thing that could possibly explain the entire island's need for serious dental work. BTW, who are the limey's Mark Twain, Lenny Bruce, Bill Hicks, George Carlin, or Chris Rock? You don't have one. You don't have half-of-one, you don't have a half a eyedropper of one. Ferchrissakes Mexicans and Canadians are funnier than anything you poor island apes can come up with.

E.N., Monty Python was a great group of comedians, but Mr. Bean is just a buffoon. I've always been partial to Douglas Adams. Anything that Frank Thornton is in is funny. I knew him as Captain Peacock long before I saw what to me is an even better role as Truelove in The Last of the Summer Wine. Of course, Compo remains my favorite in that series.